News

From the rising costs of severe weather damage to crop losses to coastal flooding, the effects of climate change are impacting Georgia now. Here’s a look at some of the different ways that climate change—and efforts to solve it—are making news in Georgia.

UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Climate Action and former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg recently announced Atlanta as one of the winning cities in Bloomberg’s American Cities Climate Challenge, according to a press release.

The American Cities Climate Challenge is a $70 million dollar program that will accelerate 20 ambitious cities’ efforts to tackle climate change and promote a sustainable future for residents.

CHATHAM COUNTY, Ga. – With Hurricane Florence’s projected path having moved south, the concern for coastal Georgia residents is increasing. Channel 2’s Tony Thomas visited Tybee Island, near Savannah, and spoke with evacuees from the Carolinas now worried they might have to move again.

What happens in California doesn’t stay in California. Smoke from the massive wildfires scorching the Golden State is drifting across the USA and has been reported as far east as New England, NASA said.

A majority of metro Atlanta residents think global warning is happening, is caused by human activities and is affecting the weather. A majority thinks global warming will harm future generations, according to a new survey by an affiliate of Yale University.

On September 8th, just four days before the start of the Global Climate Action Summit and two months before the midterm elections, Sierra Club members and supporters will join people from across the country and around the world to demand bold action to tackle the climate crisis during the Peoples Climate Movement “Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice” mobilization.

Atlanta made its municipal name as a transit hub—for trains first, then jetliners. Now the city that’s home to the world’s busiest airport is hoping to add “green energy pioneer” to its brag book. The city is working to put flesh on a framework to run entirely on renewable power by 2035.

Cobb EMC members are invited to attend a free Renewables & You Seminar to learn how to incorporate more renewables into everyday life. The seminar will cover popular topics, including electric vehicles, solar panels for your home and resources to help you live a more eco-friendly lifestyle.

To better understand how climate change will impact Georgia and what we can do to respond to those impacts, decision-makers need credible and relevant information from multiple sectors and disciplines.

Through a collaborative process, we identified 40 important research questions that, if answered, could lay the groundwork for effective, science-based climate action in Georgia.

Solarize Atlanta is a community-based solar energy group purchasing campaign that makes solar more affordable and accessible for the residents of Atlanta. Solarize campaigns harness the power of the crowd to save some major green while residences and businesses go green. Learn more.

In May 2017 mayor Kasim Reed made Atlanta the 27th city and one of the largest in the country to commit to 100% clean energy. The measure was introduced by current mayoral candidate and councilman Kwanza Hall in mid-April who said that moving to clean energy “will create good jobs, clean up our air and water and lower our residents’ utility bills.”

Solarize is a community-based solar photovoltaic bulk-purchasing campaign that makes solar more affordable and accessible for the citizens of Atlanta. Solarize campaigns harness the power of the crowd to save some major green while residences and businesses go green.

The government issued four Major Disaster Declarations in Georgia in 2017. Deputy Insurance Commissioner, Jay Florence, says this is one of the costliest years for weather-disasters the state has ever seen.

While the federal response to climate change has sputtered, Atlanta is one of the cities that’s stuck with its goals, and it’s adding more. One the city’s main initiatives is the Better Buildings Challenge, a project to cut energy and water use from buildings by 20 percent.

A few hours before the arrival of Hurricane Irma, soon to be known as Tropical Storm Irma, Joey Spalding and Cheryl McDaniel met up with friends at Nickie’s 1971 Bar and Grill to cheer on the Atlanta Falcons and to clink shot glasses, bidding Irma to spare them from harm.

Atlanta isn’t home to any icebergs at risk of melting. It’s not on the coast, where rising sea levels can flood communities. And while summer in the city are hot, Atlanta is far from becoming a dry desertscape. But the impacts of climate change are likely to still put long-term stress on metro Atlanta, scientists, officials and activists said, one day after The New York Times widely publicized a report that predicts rising temperatures nationwide and reduced rainfall in the southeastern United States.

Three-quarters of voters in Georgia’s 6th congressional district believe climate change is real, a statistic cited by activists who think climate change should be a key electoral issue in the final stretch of their hotly contested congressional race.

Two-thirds of voters in Georgia’s 6th District are very concerned or extremely concerned about climate change, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll conducted after Donald Trump’s decision to pull out from the Paris climate agreement.

Climate change anxiety is growing in America. Georgians are no exception. Voters in our state exhibit broad public support for actions that would tame the growing climate threat. Seventy-three percent of Georgians support regulating the greenhouse gas, CO², as a pollutant. A whopping 82 percent support funding increased renewable energy research, according to results of the Yale Climate Opinion 2016.

ROSWELL, Ga. — The newly formed Citizens’ Climate Lobby held its first meeting Thursday, Feb. 23 at the Unitarian Church in Roswell. Over a dozen new members joined, and the group is expecting even more in the next meeting. “The whole purpose of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby is to create political will for a livable world,” said Terry Schiff, who helped create the Roswell chapter.

On this edition of “Political Rewind” we present our second voter forum. We selected seven Georgians who say they will definitely vote on November 8 and invited them to join us to discuss what is driving their choices for president and other races this year.